At what point do you ground a student for fear of their own safety?

[kansasskydiver 0]

At what point do you ground a student from the sport? It's a tough decission to make and I'm curious what others think of this topic.

(edit: typo)

<--- See look, pink dolphins DO exist!

[Jill_UK 0]

I got grounded on my AFF for basically not flaring for 7 jumps (my mate sprained her ankle pretty badly and she was flaring so they grounded me; narrowly avoiding a combine harvester, landing on a hard path, getting my canopy stuck in a tree and still not flaring probably helped in the decision!)

i went to the gym and got some upper body strength and got contacts and went back a couple of months later to finish and all was good...

i was completely gutted at the time but in hindsight it was a good call...

[wmw999 2,170]

Many moons ago I was an instructor. I grounded two students. In both cases, it was purely a judgement call. One student seemed really stupid; his questions and behavior both indicated that. He landed reasonably well, his parachute draped over a 3' bush. He cut away and left it there because it "was a tree". This was about 50 feet away from the trailer. His questions afterwards made it clear that a lot of the rest of the class had gone in one ear and right out the other as well.

The other was the younger brother of a regular, and at the age of 17 he knew absolutely everything. Way too scary to think about him making decisions with all that knowledge. Had an argument about every single rule, safety rule, etc. That one was tougher.

In both cases, though, it was a judgement call. You have to accept that it might be a bad one as well.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[kansasskydiver 0]

Very interesting. I've dealt with many students who are just like that, either stupid or just stubborn. I generally have a way with the stubborn students that leaves them thinking twice about talking back to me. I do it professionally, that being said, I'm a pretty big guy.

The real question at hand is, if someone has a history of mistakes, at what point do you just say ok you're done for your own safety? After the 1st? give them a 2nd chance? My concern is, if you give a student another chance, what's to say that chance will be the ultimate mistake, low turn, etc... I don't think I could live with knowing I didn't ground someone when I should have.

<--- See look, pink dolphins DO exist!

[wmw999 2,170]

Quote

I don't think I could live with knowing I didn't ground someone when I should have.

You can't know. Either way. There are students who were grounded who went on to become good skydivers, and students who seemed OK who died, and students who people took a chance on who died. You can't know, and you have to understand that when you teach. You can't keep them safe, all you can do is give them equipment and instructions, and make them practice.

I had other not-so-smart and cocky students -- these just appeared to me (and I wasn't all that old or experienced at the time) to be irretrievably so at that time. The younger, cockier one might have matured, and the stupid one might have hung around a long time and figured things out slowly. Who knows.

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[tombuch 0]

If you are having trouble with a student I'd suggest asking another instructor to take over. After a few instructors have handled the person and identified the same problem grounding is in order.

I guess my preference is to spell the issues out and let the student know that you think he should consider giving up the sport, then leave the decision to him. It's generally a matter of a few stiff debriefs.

Sometimes a student just doesn't get it and must be grounded. I don't think I have ever done that, other than with a SL first jump student who was suicidal. In that case I gave him the number of a crisis center, offered to let him hang around the DZ, but made it clear he wouldn't be rejoining the class.
.

Tom Buchanan
Instructor Emeritus
Comm Pilot MSEL,G
Author: JUMP! Skydiving Made Fun and Easy

[TFFTM 1]

I actually grounded myself once during static line training. My original classroom instructor didn't put me out the first 3 times and I did great. He then put me out 4 times and I did horribly. I couldn't seem to focus, had alot of anxiety leaving the door and had very unstable exits. When I reached that point I decided that I wasn't going to continue.
I still hung out at the DZ and one day had the opportunity to do a instructional tandem and fell back in love with the sport. I then went AFF and did great (Different instructor).
I believe some instructors and students do better together than perhaps other instructors. Kinda like having your favorite teacher in school. Nothing against my first instructor but he and I didn't see eye to eye and his particular teaching method left me confused and anxious.
So going back to TOMBUCH's post
"If you are having trouble with a student I'd suggest asking another instructor to take over. After a few instructors have handled the person and identified the same problem grounding is in order. "
I think thats right on the money.
If someone really loves the sport a grounding will only make them want it more. They will focus,train and try to succeed the ones that you ground and never come back probably should have never been there in the first place.

BSBD
Home of the Alabama Gang

[kansasskydiver 0]

There is currently only 1 instructor left at the DZ that will JM this student. We've about come to a decission to ground them for fear of them becoming another landing statistic. The student doesn't realize when they've done something dangerous and has a repeated pattern of making unsound judgements under pressure that have resulted in some VERY close calls. I for one don't want to sit around and let them continue to jump only knowing that if we give them "one more chance" the last chance could be the final mistake. I can't deal with that hanging over me, knowing I could have prevented it from happening. I'm also in a very difficult position becuase we're a small club, we're all friends and the student in question is also a friend of us all...

<--- See look, pink dolphins DO exist!

[wmw999 2,170]

Can you have an assignment for the student to read "The Parachute and its Pilot" or something like that and write about it, if it's landing and canopy control-specific?

Can you require a larger main and reserve canopy until judgement is shown to be more sound? It's possible to hurt yourself at a .5-1 loading, but a whole lot harder, and a whole lot less comfortable (which is incentive to get good enough to downsize).

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[kansasskydiver 0]

Student in question has been coached a number of times on canopy control but still continues to make poor decissions, mostly dangerous decissions. Canopy being jumped are Nav 260's, Student has around 60 or so jumps and is still working on their progression.

Any fear I had is when it gets to the point of having to meet the accuracy requirements, why the student may do as a result of trying to land on target.

<--- See look, pink dolphins DO exist!

[skydived19006 4]

Hey Chris,

This is defiantly a tough decision! We currently have a student that did 15 practice throws (we train IAD). We finally cleared him for H&P, he went unstable, and fell to Cypress fire. He was obviously shaken, landed off field, and dislocated his elbow. He really wants to jump again, and at this point it looks like we’re going to do a lot of harness time with him, and go back to practice pulls. My fear is that if ever faced with a malfunction he’ll brain lock again, leaving five kids with one less parent.

Oh, don’t send your student to me, and I’ll promise not to send mine your way.

Martin

Experience is what you get when you thought you were going to get something else.

AC DZ

[shall555 0]

Back when I was a jumpmaster, I got elected by the other JMs at the dz to "have the talk" with a girl who was doing badly and was, we all felt, skydiving for the wrong reasons.

The consensus was that she was an accident waiting to happen. She teared up a bit, but I got the sense that she was relieved, in a way.

It was a very tough conversation to have, but it was the right thing to do.

shall

[DanglesOZQld 0]

A little off but once had a student with a history of bad canopy flying / decisions choose to purchase a sabre 150 at around 30-40 jumps.

We told her that with the way she was flying the student canopies and the amount of jumps she had it would be better that she did not jump her Sabre until flying a larger canopy for a while longer.

The end result was her leaving us for another dz that did let her jump the new canopy. Money rules sometimes but at least she did not hurt herself on our dz!! FRUSTRATING THOUGH!

BSBD! -Mark.

"A Scar is just a Tattoo with a story!!!"